


1926: Night, when words fade and things come alive

by ThatClumsyGirl



Series: Home of the Free [3]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Series, darkness/night as a metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 21:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20070682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatClumsyGirl/pseuds/ThatClumsyGirl
Summary: Thank you for the comment and the kudos on the last one :-*This is the first "tie-in", set after chapter 5 of Sunrise over Sea. I'm so slow, this should've been posted weeks ago, but the Downton Movie trailer and my holiday (in the North of England) distracted me. I'll now try and finish this series before the movie comes out, it'll be too hard to concentrate on an AU once we've all seen that ;)This fic is dedicated to everyone who has ever had a panic attack, for whatever reason. It doesn't have a poem, for once, but at least the title is a quote from Antoine de St. Exupéry.





	1926: Night, when words fade and things come alive

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for the comment and the kudos on the last one :-*  
This is the first "tie-in", set after chapter 5 of Sunrise over Sea. I'm so slow, this should've been posted weeks ago, but the Downton Movie trailer and my holiday (in the North of England) distracted me. I'll now try and finish this series before the movie comes out, it'll be too hard to concentrate on an AU once we've all seen that ;)  
This fic is dedicated to everyone who has ever had a panic attack, for whatever reason. It doesn't have a poem, for once, but at least the title is a quote from Antoine de St. Exupéry.

The night is uncommonly still. No bird is chattering, no rain is roaring down onto the sheet-metal roofs and none of the many nations of the city is noisily celebrating a holiday. The occasional gust of wind rustles the trees and makes open window shutters bump softly into walls; in the distance, the waves of the ocean roll endlessly, timeless and ageless. Recently, Thomas has come back to appreciating silence. The noise in his head has become fainter and fainter and sometimes, like tonight, it even stops completely. He cannot wait to get home, get wrapped up in Edward's arms, that most peaceful of places. It is one of those nights when they can lose themselves completely in each other, when their whole world focusses on that all-encompassing feeling of _feeling _and the way their bodies touch is the only part of reality that matters.

Then again, tonight, Thomas would also be absolutely content with just watching Edward sleep for a while, study the way he smiles in his dreams, how his eyelashes cast the tiniest shadows and how his slender hands are never completely still for any amount of time. He looks so young when he sleeps, much younger than thirty. Or rather, thirty-one, as of last week. (They had had a really nice party for his birthday with all the neighbours they've already made friends with in their two and a half months here) He has to spend a lot of his strength on learning the outlines of the place completely from scratch and has had to go back to relying on the goodwill of others (mostly Thomas) in big and small ways. Nonetheless, he has remained surprisingly calm and patient. Edward always puts that down to being stubborn, but Thomas has come to realize that it is really a steadfast optimism. It must have been the driving force behind the past few years of Edward's life and helped him survive through all the misery and misfortunes.

Just the thought of that serene determination paired with his bright and honest smile is enough to lift Thomas' spirits when he is having a tough day. On a good day like today it makes him feel like he could soar above the island and float home. Right now, he wishes he actually could, because the way seems exceedingly long tonight.

It's so late, the street-lights have been turned off already. Thomas had got held up at work, one of the rich guests had hosted an “event” at the hotel – it had reminded him of Downton at the height of its splendour, but in a good way. By the roadside, only the odd window is illuminated and he has to find the way mostly by moonlight and memory, pushing his bicycle along. Their house is completely dark when Thomas turns the corner but that doesn't have to mean anything. It's not like Edward needs any light, he usually just leaves it on so Thomas doesn't have to come home into an unlit house and fumble through the pitch-dark to find his keys. The moon shines just bright enough tonight to make that an easy task. When he flicks the switch behind the front-door, nothing happens; a power-cut, not entirely unusual, he'll have to grab one of the torchlights they keep on the porch.

A tiny sob from somewhere on his right turns all his fuzzy contentment and anticipation into a burning fear deep inside his chest, screaming at him that something is utterly wrong. Is Edward injured? Have there been burglars? Are they still in the house? All of these questions arise within a second, while Thomas feels like a bucket of ice is being poured down his spine.

“Edward? Are you there?”, he asks the darkness in a low voice while his right hand is busy groping around for the torchlight that should be on the windowsill just outside. A slightly louder sob is the answer and Thomas shifts from worried to absolutely frantic. “Edward, say something” But all he gets in return is a hitched sort of laugh and if that isn't the most disturbing thing he's ever heard, he doesn't know what is. Finally, his fingers close around the torch and he can shine its pale beam along the floor until it lights upon the younger man, sitting with his knees drawn to his chest in a corner of the kitchen, busy wiping the tears from his cheeks, struggling to get control over the wild, desperate look on his face. “For God's sake, what's wrong?”

Edward puts his hand over his mouth but Thomas can still see that weird sad half-smile he had first seen in 1917. “Nothing”, he mumbles and his hand can't quite mask the quiver in his voice that seems stuck between laughing and crying.

Thomas wants to rush towards him, gather him up in an embrace and tell him everything is going to be alright – he would, if he weren't so terrified. Of making it worse, mostly. And of the distant but ever-present possibility that Edward has lost it and gone mad. He approaches warily, taking in the way Edward's clothes look like he's slept in them and how the scars around his eyes are red and irritated, just like when they were quite new. He must've been crying for a while but at least Thomas can't detect any obvious injuries. “Doesn't look like nothing”, he says as he kneels down two feet away from his boyfriend. Edward's unseeing gaze drifts aimlessly, even more so than usual, and he doesn't seem to be sure where to put all his limbs, shifts his arms and legs in unfinished, choppy movements. Thomas has seen him agitated and fidgety, but never like this.

“It's fine now, you're here … I'll be … just fine now” His voice is on its way back to normal, so that's something. Suddenly, he goes completely still, except for a slight shiver that seems to shake all his nerves at once, like he is willing himself to appear calm. “What must I look like? I'm so sorry, I never meant to scare you”

“Won't you tell me what happened?” Thomas feels like his heart might break if he doesn't hold Edward right now, but a part of him is still cautious and acutely aware of every detail he can make out in the sparse light. Little red smudges line the insides of Edward's hands where he has clenched his fists so strongly his nails broke through the skin.

“It's ridiculous, really, I … just got spooked … The silence was … I was lost-” His voice breaks, along with his composure, and finally Thomas sees it for what it is – not madness, but sheer relief from that unknown horror. He pulls Edward close, crashing into him, and Edward holds on so tightly, his clutching fingers might tear Thomas' shirt.

“My darling, it's fine now … You're safe, alright … I'm here, you're safe, I promise” Thomas doesn't know how often he says those words or how long he keeps Edward bundled up in his arms, feeling his racing heartbeat, the way his whole body tenses when he sobs. Thomas forces himself to be calm, to be the solid presence Edward needs to shelter in. He imagines them as two cast-aways on their own little island, far away from the rest of the world and everything that is menacing or distressing or _just too much_. The only important thing right now is that they're both here, in this moment, on the floor of a little house in Mānoa, so close that the very atoms in their bodies might merge. And as much as Thomas wants to jump up, fret about what has scared his boyfriend, find it and then destroy it, he won't move from this spot until Edward feels safe again. Eventually, the sobs fade away, the heartbeat under his soothing hands slows and the death-grip embrace turns into something more comfortable.

“I'm sorry”, Edward mumbles as soon as he is able to withdraw his face far enough from Thomas' chest to speak.

“You don't have to be. Never” Thomas will keep telling him that until he believes it. “And now I really need to know what happened, so I can fix it”

“It was the silence. Why is it so silent, anyway? It never is, around here”

It's weird, talking to him like this and only seeing his back, where Thomas' hands still move in gentle circles. “I don't know, but I noticed it, too. And it scared you?” Now that he thinks about it, there is always sound about the house when Edward is alone. Apart from music, he has developed a fondness for listening to baseball-games on the radio.

“Not at first. I always find it uncomfortable at best but this was … it was kind of oppressive. And when I turned on the radio, there was a snapping noise and that was it. I suppose I fused it, somehow. But I still had the music in my head to fall back on. Then I must've dozed off” The torchlight grows dimmer every second and finally leaves them in the dark. “When I woke up, it was completely still. I tried to open a window to hear the wind and the ocean, but it wouldn't open and then … I don't know, I completely lost my bearings. Couldn't find the door, couldn't even find a chair to sit on. And … then the pictures in my head took over”

Thomas doesn't need to ask what the pictures are – they're a variation of his own nightmares. Hills smudged across the horizon, grey on grey, a barren colourless field interspersed with dead trees and an undergrowth of barbed wire, bomb craters filled with green water and floating bodies. A whiz, a bang and a fountain of scattered earth and … other things; blood erupting where a bullet hit, men scaling the trenches with a ferocious howl of determination and running headlong into hell – it only takes a second of thought about it to make Thomas nauseous with fear, he can't begin to imagine what Edward must've felt. _The last thing I ever saw were dead people_, he had said that night in London.

“I tried to snap myself out of it, but I couldn't. My mind was just blank, I … I couldn't even focus on the hope that you'd come back soon”, Edward continues, still in that low voice that is so typical for him. Hushed, like he is afraid of speaking into the empty darkness in front of him.

“How long did you sit here like this?” Thomas can somehow relate, right now. He fiercely wishes for a light and to look at Edward's face. He has never quite mastered the art of detecting emotions and meanings from voice alone, but then he's never really had to.

“An hour, maybe a bit longer”

Thomas knows how much time Edward had spent as a prisoner in his own mind in the years following the war, so an hour of revisiting that without any means of escape sounds like torture of the worst sort. And he knows what it's like to find oneself paralysed, trying to breathe through the incorporeal hands tightening around the throat and to hear through the shrieking whistle, burrowing deeper into the fear the more one tries to break free of it. But all he has to do is open his eyes, turn on the lights and find something from the present to look at – Edward doesn't have that option, so he does the same via sound. Of course that doesn't work when there is no sound, so everything becomes an unforgiving blend of darkness, silence and disorientation.

“I always used to be afraid of the dark”, Edward continues in even fainter tones, “I found it threatening and too full of uncertainties. Being afraid of silence is new. It made me feel …” He mumbles something Thomas doesn't quite catch.

“Made you feel what, my darling?”

“Made me feel dead”

The word reverberates painfully in Thomas' heart and he pulls Edward closer again. Dead. They've both been on the brink of it, have both come to fear it and the cold desolation that seems to lie beyond. _Dead_ means forever, in all its bad ways. And Edward has just spent an hour that probably felt like a month afraid that he might have fallen into that void unawares.

Thomas changes their position just enough to press fumbling kisses along Edward's cheek until he reaches his lips. It takes the younger man a few seconds to respond, he does so like a traveller who's been lost on the ice and starving for warmth. Thomas immerses him in that warmth, pours it into his soul until the shivering stops and they break apart with a breathless sigh.

“You're not dead”, Thomas whispers.

“Perfect way to remind me” Edward smiles against his lips and even in the dark Thomas can tell that it is his real smile, the slow intense one that makes his whole presence gleam.

“Are you feeling better now? We should get up from the floor” They get up, never letting go of each other. “Wait, I need to find another torchlight or some candles. You fused the whole house earlier” There is a little moonlight but it's not quite enough. He begins to turn away but Edward keeps a hold of his hand.

“I'm really glad you put up with me, even through my darker moments”, he whispers.

“I don't _put up _with you … I love you, Edward. Always remember that” Thomas realises he's never said it out loud, but it has been beyond question all the time. He has never felt as strongly about anyone in his life, not even remotely. It seems fitting to say those words into the dark, drop them into the shadows hoping they'll arrive safely.

Edward embraces him again, calm and excited at the same time. “I love you, too, with all my heart” It sounds very certain and very natural when he says it and Thomas has never heard anything so beautiful. In the silence and the darkness, they have found a path closer together.

~~~

Thomas is seriously worn out but he can't sleep. Emotions are exhausting but they always feel kind of dangerous, as well. That danger has left him in a bit of a rush, like he has too much energy. He should probably get up and take a walk around the block for a while but he can't tear himself away from Edward right now.

This is not what he had in mind for the night, but here they are. At least he has his boyfriend in his arms as planned, even if he looks completely overwrought and more like passed out than sleeping. The moonlight gives him a ghostly sort of paleness, almost as if he were made of glass and would shatter the moment Thomas so much as moves.

Seeing Edward as frail fundamentally goes against his conviction. He may be vulnerable, preoccupied and always wavering on the brink of darkness, but he is not some little flower that will snap in the first gust of wind. Other people might think so, pity him and patronise him, but Thomas never does. Edward needs help, yes, but that doesn't make him any less strong. Actually, when it comes down to it, he can be as tough as nails, in his quiet and understated way. To see him so shaken was a shock and a revelation at the same time. Leaving England hasn't magically rid them of all their scars, it hasn't changed the past. They may have a few yards' lead over it, but there's always the risk of falling behind again. It's good to know Thomas can deal with this when it happens to Edward. He wonders what it'll be like when it happens to himself.

Edward's voice raises him from his musings. “Thomas, are you awake?”, he whispers as silently as possible.

“Yes”

“Go to sleep, darlin' … Just sleep, it's all fine” He curls up against Thomas' side like he wants to hide, puts a hand over his heart; he often does that at night.

And Thomas finally relaxes into the touch and gives way to the weariness. Tomorrow, there'll be two things to do: mend the fuse and buy a wind-up gramophone.


End file.
